Ice hockey
Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice hockey sticks to control, advance, and shoot a closed, vulcanized, rubber disc called a "puck" into the other team's goal. Each goal is worth one point. The team which scores the most goals is declared the winner. In a formal game, each team has six skaters on the ice at a time, barring any penalties, one of whom is the goaltender. Ice hockey is a full contact sport, and is considered to be one of the more physically demanding team sports.[1][2] It is distinct from field hockey, in which players move a ball around a non-frozen pitch using field hockey sticks.
This article is about the contact team sport played on ice. For the overall family of sports involving sticks and goals, see Hockey. For the sport played on fields and using a hockeyball, see Field hockey.Highest governing body
1875, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
- 3 forwards
- 2 defencemen
- 1 goaltender
No
- Ice hockey pucks
- Ice hockey sticks
- Ice hockey skates
- Shin pads
- Shoulder pads
- Gloves
- Helmet (with visor or cage, depending on age of player and league)
- Elbow pads
- jock or jill
- Ice hockey jersey
- Ice hockey socks
- Ice hockey pants
- Neck guard (depends on league)
- Mouthguard (depends on league)
- Hockey rink or arena
- sometimes played on a frozen lake or pond for recreation
- Men's, 1920 Summer Olympics
- Men's, 1924 Winter Olympics to present
- Women's, 1998 Winter Olympics to present
The modern sport of ice hockey was developed in Canada, most notably in Montreal, where the first indoor game was played on March 3, 1875. Some characteristics of that game, such as the length of the ice rink and the use of a puck, have been retained to this day. Amateur ice hockey leagues began in the 1880s, and professional ice hockey originated around 1900. The Stanley Cup, emblematic of ice hockey club supremacy, was initially commissioned in 1892 as the "Dominion Hockey Challenge Cup" and was first awarded in 1893 to recognise the Canadian amateur champion and later became the championship trophy of the National Hockey League (NHL). In the early 1900s, the Canadian rules were adopted by the Ligue Internationale de Hockey sur Glace, in Paris, France, the precursor of the IIHF. The sport was played for the first time at the Olympics during the 1920 Summer Olympics—today it is a mainstay at the Winter Olympics. In 1994 ice hockey was officially recognized as Canada's national winter sport.[3]
While women also played during the game's early formative years, it was not until organizers began to officially remove body checking from female ice hockey beginning in the mid-1980s that it began to gain greater popularity, which by then had spread to Europe and a variety of other countries. The first IIHF Women's World Championship was held in 1990, and women's play was introduced into the Olympics in 1998.
Tactics[edit]
Defensive tactics[edit]
Defensive ice hockey tactics vary from more active to more conservative styles of play. One distinction is between man-to-man oriented defensive systems, and zonal oriented defensive systems, though a lot of teams use a combination between the two. Defensive skills involve pass interception, shot blocking, and stick checking (in which an attempt to take away the puck or cut off the puck lane is initiated by the stick of the defensive player). Tactical points of emphasis in ice hockey defensive play are concepts like "managing gaps" (gap control), "boxing out"' (not letting the offensive team go on the inside), and "staying on the right side" (of the puck). Another popular concept in ice hockey defensive tactics is that of playing a 200-foot game.[22]